I’m on Patreon. I started it not to become rich (but I won’t complain if I do) but to find another outlet for my writing and creativity. To that end I post a continuing Dying Days YA novella with a new chapter the beginning of each month. I have no idea when it will end. The fun is just writing another chapter and seeing where it goes. Hell, it might end up becoming a Dying Days YA epic novel before I’m done. That’s the fun of Patreon for me.

The other thing I like to do is post short stories many readers have not seen. Stuff sitting around collecting dust I find. And after writing for most of my life, I have quite a few. I’d have more if I hadn’t lost them on floppy disks and inside a word processor and all the other antiquated technology over the years. It allows me to share a few things with the readers who are definitely interested in what I’ve written or will be writing.

Yes, I get money for it. Mostly you donate $1 and you get to read anything I post. Simple as that. I do a weekly update with all of my writing and you get to see what I’m currently working on. You also get some cool stuff if you pledge more, too:

Pledge $1 per month

You get exclusive content like my weekly update for what I am writing as well as a new first draft chapter for my Dying Days YA novella before anyone else reads them as well as either an out of print or new short story each month or a new novel I’m working on chapter by chapter. As well I’ll be posting videos of random things I shoot like story readings, answering questions or general nonsense.

Pledge $5 per month

Besides all of the above you get a shout-out on my Arm Cast: Dead Sexy Horror Podcast during the month as a very cool person!

2015 was another solid year for me when it came to releases. While the amount of new product slowed, the same amount of words was released in my estimation. My goal each year is to hit 400,000 words written and except for a couple of short stories currently awaiting publication, everything else was released via self publishing or through a small press in 2015.

I had 30 releases, which was less than the 45 a year average I’ve done the last two years. I also went through my works and eliminated all of the serialized stories that made it into complete collections as well as redundant releases I did myself.

Box sets were still a big deal for me in 2015. A lot of my secondary sales through them as well as key Amazon ranking came because of the box sets and I hope to continue to be involved in a few more in the future.

The last day in January Dying Days was published in this box set along with notables Joe McKinney, Bobby Adair, TW Piperbrook, Michaelbrent Collings, Sarah Lyons Fleming, Shawn Chesser, Rachel Aukes, David Moody, Timothy W Long and Eric A Shelman. The best part? it’s still only 99 cents!

Also on the 13th, the first part of a trilogy came out, a horror humor tale written with Jack Wallen, Jay Wilburn and Brent Abell. This was fun to write. We debuted this at Mid South Con in Memphis to rousing success. Fine, we sold 5 copies.

On the 26th of May my short story “Down In A Hole” was featured in this Simon and Schuster release. Tim Curran, Jeff Strand, Rebecca Besser, MontiLee Stormer, Lee Moan, Tonia Brown, Jake Bible, Faye McCray, and Jimmy Pudge were all involved as well. Get it.

Tim put 19 of his stories together in this fine collection, and had other authors (such as myself) give him one of our stories to promote. He’s a swell guy. This came out June 6th. I had “Dying Days: Noah Stern” short in there.

June 16th Dying Days 5 was released. Putting this together I realize its my first self published full release for the year, as everything else was an anthology or audiobook previously out. I’d been writing up a storm up to this point in the year but most of it would be released later (as you’ll see) or written for the movie team and those books sometimes come out months in the future. Anyhoo… this is part 5 and it was released right in the midst of my annual #SummerofZombie blog tour.

This was a really cool charity anthology to help a friend in need who is such a big supporter of zombie authors. Over 30 authors contributed a YA zombie story, including my first-ever, a Dying Days story featuring the children of the family. It will definitely lead into my first-ever Dying Days YA novella in late 2016, too.

This is the updated version. I changed the crazy sex parts and over the top violence and made it more in line with the rest of the Dying Days books. So far people have enjoyed the less intense version, although it still isn’t for the kids. I’d give it a solid R rating instead of the NC17 it used to be.

September 4th this cool anthology came out. It’s a shared world anthology and written by Joe McKinney, Armand Rosamilia, Tonia Brown, Joe Mynhardt, Aurelio Lopez III, and Alex Laybourne. You don’t get any cooler than that group. Am I right?

On the 8th, right in time for the Imaginarium convention on Kentucky, we released the third and final part. Single digits of people flocked to our signing tables, creating such a noise the car alarms went off in the parking lot.

I wrote this novella based on a movie that was filmed but some people weren’t happy with it. So (because it is Hollywood and beyond me) I was listed as editor, the cover is just words and it has distanced itself from the movie by changing the title. The book is much better than the movie, by the way. Much.

October 14th saw this extensive collection released. Nonfiction essays and interviews by film legends and authors such as Wes Craven, George A. Romero, Ray Bradbury, Ed Naha, Patrick Lussier, Stephen Volk, Nancy Holder, Tom Holland, John Shirley, William Stout, and John Russo. For some crazy reason they thought I had something to say on the subject, too.

On the 30th Devil Dog Press re-released this book, one of my favorites and my first real full-length novel. Look for longer books from me in 2016, and most of them more thriller and less horror as I change things up a bit. This book is one of my favorites I’ve ever written, and you need to read it and tell me I’m right or wrong. As long as you read it.

The seventh and final release in the contemporary fiction Flagler Beach Fiction Series was out on the 20th. The audiobook followed in November, too, once again narrated by the great Jack Di Golia. This wraps up the series although I have a feeling we’ll see some of these characters again in the future.

Halloween saw the release of this cool anthology, where eleven authors took the kernel of the same basic story and made it our own. Hi-jinx ensued. Abel, Chesser, Evans, McKinney, O’Brien, Rosamilia, Shelman, Stallcup, Tufo, Wallen, Wilburn. So cool you don’t need first names.

November 3rd, at the basic start of my annual #WinterofZombie tour I always release a new Dying Days book. I still technically did, and it nicely combines characters from the first Highway To Hell as well as Dying Days: Origins.

Four novellas set in the Dying Days world are included in this massive box set: Still Dying: Select Scenes From Dying Days, Still Dying 2, Dying Days: The Siege of European Village and Dying Days: Siege 2
Plus… the two-story Dying Shortly set (now out of print except here) and 2 short stories previously only available on a website: “Dying Days: Downtown From Hell” and “Dying Days: The Scorpion”… Over 500 pages and more than 174,000 words in all! This special box set will only be available for a limited time at a special price of $9.99 but right now its only $3.49, so get a copy. Look for the second one in early 2016, too.

November 23rd I released all three of these glorious books Jack, Brent and Jay and I had written in a convenient box set. Now you have no excuse not to read them. And its priced right now for only $3.49, so you really have no excuse at all.

I told you I liked box sets this year. On the 30th I put all 7 of the Flagler Beach Fiction Series books together in one massive 190,000+ word ebook collection and priced it at only $3.99. You’re welcome.

My last release of 2015 and one of my favorite stories. I liken it to a Bentley Little weird tale and so far readers have agreed. A little different from my traditional horror work, which I will be getting slightly away from in 2016. I’ll still have many horror releases and more Dying Days but this book (as well as Chelsea Avenue, both released by Devil Dog Press) will further expand what I’m doing.

Also look for my Kindle Scout-winning Dirty Deeds crime thriller in early 2016, too! Mark Tufo and I wrote an apocalyptic tale together (no zombies!) featuring Darlene Bobich and Mike Talbot. Look for that in 2016 as well… big things on the horizon for me in 2016.

Two years ago my then-girlfriend Shelly asked me how much I wrote each year. I shrugged. Most days I didn’t know how much I’d just written. I never kept track. I just wrote and wrote and wrote until stories got finished.

I was curious to know, and also to find a way to minimize the days I didn’t write and get a better understanding on what I was actually doing.

Since she is the smarter one (don’t let her know I said it, even though she already knows) she created a simple spreadsheet in Excel for me. I punched in my daily number and it worked it through the week, month and year to give me running totals.

I decided my goal would be 1,500 a day or 10,000 words a week and 520,000 words for the year. I had no idea if it was possible or I’d crush the number, since I never really tracked any of this writing thing.

October 2013 began this experiment.

In my first year I wrote 477,000 words. My daily average was 1,308. I had 123 days without writing, which is crazy but real life does get in the way of sitting and writing every day. Some days I was burnt out or busy with errands and kids. Some days I wanted to watch a movie.

The second year just passed. Yesterday was my last day of year 2. How’d I do?

423,000 words. My daily average was 1,158. I only had 92 days I didn’t write, despite getting married and a honeymoon, several conventions and general life in my way. I wrote more days but less words each day as non-writing work (Authors Supporting Our Troops, Arm Cast: Dead Sexy Horror Podcast, Arm N Toof’s Dead Time Podcast, social media promoting, Winter of Zombie and Summer of Zombie blog tours getting bigger, etc. etc.) got in the way of my actual words as well.

What did I learn? I write a lot of words compared to some people and not enough stacked against others.

Today marks the first day of my new writing year. I think I’m going to calm down a bit and settle in and relax. I have my rough schedule of work in the next 12 months laid out, which means nothing once a new contract or something interesting crosses my desk. Until then… I want to break 400,000 words in the next year. That’s only 1,096 words a day average. Very easy to beat.

Will I do it? I don’t see why not. With my new way to write each day (#MandoMethod, where I write as many words in a 15 minute stretch without a break) I am averaging 600 words a sprint, so writing 30 minutes a day (in theory) will hit my goals easily.

I’m also excited to be one-half of the team for an upcoming second podcast on Project iRadio, Arm N Toof: Dead Time Podcast with author Mark Tufo.

Jess at Project iRadio (along with author Brian Keene) will be taking advertising for each show. We’ll either be reading spots inside the show itself or adding your radio-ready spots to the episode. Get in touch with them for what you need to do. There are many podcasts attached to Project iRadio besides these two new ones, so you can also advertise on multiple ones if you want. Just sayin’.

Interested in seeing what the rates are? Go HERE for all of the information and to ask for more info, too. Let them know I recommended you, please and thank you.

Most shows will only have up to three ads per episode, so space is very limited. Act now. Don’t delay.

Hopefully Mark Tufo and I will be reading your ad on a future episode!

Podcast devoted to interviewing horror authors, publishers, editors, artists, filmmakers, narrators, and anyone else in the arts and entertainment fields. We also like M&Ms. Armand Rosamilia is your host.

ARM N TOOF’S DEAD TIME PODCAST

Two hosts for the price of one. Authors Armand Rosamilia and Mark Tufo interview authors, publishers, filmmakers and anyone else they want to chat with. Not only zombie and apocalyptic peeps, either… literally anyone they want to talk to. Coming Wednesday July 8th to Project iRadio.

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